Hello to the members of the poetry list, where I've been lurking as a 
mere reader for a month -- and am enjoying the discussions -- and 
hello Ira, 

Last month at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, there was 
an exhibition of  Sean Cullen's paintings of Irish republican 
prisoners' 'comms' (the communications smuggled out of prison).  They 
were painted on huge boards in a meticulously rendered typeface (a 
very classical one -- Boldoni, I think). It was agonising to read 
--white lettering on dark green -- and it was peculiarly difficult to 
find the right distance to scan a line comfortably.   (I don't know 
if this was a comment by physiology on the problem of 'distance' in 
'reading' Ireland!) Many people stood and read for a long time, 
spending much longer in front of each panel than would normally be 
given to an image, but it would have taken hours to read all the 
panels. The 'comms' are available as a book, but not, I think, from a 
major press, in Waterstones etc.  Why paint it? Certainly more people 
read some part of the collection this way, and the physical 
difficulty of reading the official-looking print matched the strange 
mixture of details of prison life (more cigarette papers needed) and 
the announcements of the official IRA decisions,  and the deaths in 
the hunger strike. 

>From the historical/theoretical point of view you might be
interested in The Fate of the Object: From Modern Object to
Postmodern Sign in Performance, Art, and Poetry by Jon Erickson
(1995, U of Michigan Press).  I've only just started to read this,
but the chapter on poetry discusses L*A*N*G*U*A*G*E  and others.  It
seems useful, although there are things to argue with on every page
so far, along with some slippery sloppiness, I think.  For example, 
on transparency/opacity (which was exercising the poetry list
recently), he says: 'attempts to render a medium transparent, as in
Brecht's alienation effect or in the gestures of painterly
abstraction, actually accomplishes its opposite, and the medium is
rendered opaque: it becomes a trademark'. This seems completely back
to front  with regard to Brecht, who was aiming -- precisely -- to
make the medium visible.  (If you translate Brecht's
'Verfremdungseffekt' as 'estrangement effect' instead of 'alienation
effect', the relation to 'ostranenie'/'defamiliarisation' strategies
in poetry is clearer).    Anyway, if you're familiar with the poets 
he discusses, you'll be able to disagree well. He talks a little 
about resistance/delay  vs the quick fix commodity:  the difficult 
text 'remains an object of desire, whose shifting planes reveal
different things at different times.'  Maybe I shouldn't say more 
till I've read the rest!
Best wishes,

Eleanor



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